When are tower computers going to disappear?

Actually, if you like, you can already buy a laptop and what's called a docking station. That way, you can carry around a laptop when you want to and, when at home, plug into a station which has a larger monitor and keyboard. I know both Dell and Compaq make 'em (I used both in '00, two jobs ago), dunno how much they cost.

As soon as I can fit my four harddrives into a laptop, my desktop will probably go away.

I like my desktop. As you know kicky, it's a G5 and it looks very cool, even in the midsts of the usual clutter.

kickycan, I've often wondered about that myself! It seems that the computer makers are behind the times. I would buy one if they were made available very quickly; I'm sure the demand is there. Why aren't the computer companies meeting that demand?

Having an option is always good.

When Romulans start making them......

Trekking, bear?

They are dinosaurs.

I mean, aside from the fact that you have grown attached to your big clunky tower, what other reason is there to have this big extra separate part, if it can all be done as a single component?

As Jer pointed out, once they come out with something that can hold as much space, which they will, it should be the end of the towers. And I, for one, will be fine with that.

Towers are actually a fairly recent innovation. The original pc's had a box which sat on the dest or table, and one usually put one's monitor on top of the box. I like my tower, because it sits on the floor next to the wall, under the table on which my monitor and keyboard sit. The capacity to add additional hardware will keep the boxes fairly large for some years to come, i'm thinking. Could i afford it, i'd be filling up that unused space in my tower with another CD/RW drive, more memory and new sound and video cards--unfortunately, i have a large animal to feed . . . me . . . and so cannot afford all of the upgrades of which i dream.

Oh, you're talking about your system at work?

With the use of USB connections, the box really doesn't need to be that big.

I'm not talking of any specific system, I'm just saying that, in general, it is the trend I see.

Setanta, I don't see why all that stuff couldn't be built in and/or hooked up to a laptop.

My dream is a big laptop with a 21" screen...that's essentially a portable desktop.

I'd be all over that.

A lot could not be built in because of the size constraint. If i had the funds, i'd be running two hard drives, two DVD/CDR/W drives, an additional soundcard, additional memory, an additional video card with added memory on that. USB connections would make a lap-top unweildy, to my mind, because you'd be dealing with all the stuff hanging off of it. I don't know that we're at the limit of the amount of "switches" which can be etched onto a micro-chip, but it's been quite some years since there was a dramatic reduction in the size the total hardware system. Sure you can cram terabytes of hard drive into your box, but with the programs and OS's out there, and in my case, the video games, you can fill that up pretty quickly. Add DVD movie files, or AVI files, and you start filling them up all the more. On an old machine i had, and which i sold to a friend, we installed an additional CDR/W drive, and now he's able to run games on a cd in one drive, with the game cd in the other. It writes to and reads from the cache on the hard drive just as well, and it swaps data faster, and uses less of the RAM--you get way better game performance. I often play games, and have them minimized while i'm on line or doing something else on the box--having a separate high-performance, high memory video card could allow me to do both without straining the resources of the current card--which is fine for this kind of thing--while using the (NVidia G-Force, if i had the spare bucks) additional video card controls the game. Even for games which were not originally written to run a card by themselves, there are game hacks on line to allow that.

My main concern is gaming performance, and the old fashioned box offers me more than a laptop can currently. Further miniaturization without sacrifice of performance is the only way i could see going to a laptop for what i want. I suspect that those who do high density graphics, artwork, desktop publishing, AutoCad and other monster programs need an old-fashioned box for the high-end work.

I think we're headed that way; it hasn't been that long ago that we didn't have USB drives. Chips are more powerful and runs cooler. I think a few more generations of R&D, and we'll have those smaller pc's with all the bells and whistles.

Towers will probably never disappear in some niches where they make much more sense than laptops.

But if you want the most pivotal advancement toward that end it would involve cooling systems and CPUs.

Laptops currently have a CPU heat downside that desktops do not.

For anyone that's been working with PCs for a while now you might recall that IBM, Dell and Compaq all tried the "tiny PCs" a few years back and they flopped. Essentially, they gave you a PC with all the features in a stripped down case and relied in the USB connections as c.i. mentioned but people pretty much just rejected the idea.

In an effort to be everything to everyone they had to compromise in some areas (i.e. video preformance) to get everything into the box and you had to decide exactly what you wanted for features when you bought it because there wws no way to upgrade or modify the systems after it was delivered (other than memory upgrades).

But people have been rejecting laptops for a long time now too. To make them small they build everything into teh motherboards so you either end up paying for features you don't need or you end up with a system with marginal performance.

Not me baby. I love my laptop. Love my desktop. Hope to keep the options open.

hehe Well, I have both myself but they have advantages/disadvantages in different areas. The debate over when the desktop (or tower) PC is going to go away has been going on for a long time now and no one has come up with a viable solution that the marketplace has accepted as a real alternative.